In the process of researching DSLR's, I've learned a couple things about my current little Point-and-Shoot Canon, so on the way home tonight around 11pm I stopped near the power plant and messed with it's combinations of exposure, ISO and shutter speeds.

These each have between a :07-:15 shutter lapse, slight over-exposure and ISO at 80. Lemme know what you think!

Yeah I thought it was cool too. Photobucket really degraded the quality of the photo so that's kind of a bummer. I can't wait for a night of cloud cover to try it out some more. Getting the city lights reflecting off the clouds I think would look awesome!

Try white balance adjustments too. Say 'flourescent' setting. You may have two types, one for blue, the other for orange. Then try 'cloudy', incandescent' etc for some nifty color tricks. With your slr this is where RAW kicks @$s. You adjust white balance post exposure to get colors you prefer.
Also maybe iso 125-200 as well. Meter the dark spots. And ev -1.7 to -2.0 ish. Maybe more.
You'll get more car with less harsh bright spots. You can lighten the dark spots later but overbright areas you're stuck with.

And yes phtobucket sucks the pizazz from your nice pix.
Looking forward to seeing more of your pix.

Try white balance adjustments too. Say 'flourescent' setting. You may have two types, one for blue, the other for orange. Then try 'cloudy', incandescent' etc for some nifty color tricks. With your slr this is where RAW kicks @$s. You adjust white balance post exposure to get colors you prefer.
Also maybe iso 125-200 as well. Meter the dark spots. And ev -1.7 to -2.0 ish. Maybe more.
You'll get more car with less harsh bright spots. You can lighten the dark spots later but overbright areas you're stuck with.

And yes phtobucket sucks the pizazz from your nice pix.
Looking forward to seeing more of your pix.

Good info! The majority of these are my manual settings. I can specify the ISO, shutter time, exposure level to a degree, white balance pre-exposure (flourescent seemed to wash the photos out under the parking lights), and the camera chooses the focal length based on my zoom level, and the f-stop (I don't know how it chooses that). See below.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Leavemdroolin

I like it a lot man. Taking good shots takes lots of practice messing around with your specific camera to find what it's good at. What lense are you using?

Thank you sir. Now that I've learned this feature, I'm definitely hooked! This camera is just my Canon PowerShot point-and-shoot, no lenses or anything. In shopping for a new camera and researching what all DSLR's have to offer, I've actually learned a couple things about this little one.

Stopped off a couple places again after work to play around a little more. Also decided to start a Flikr account to preserve the original photos as much as possible. Flikr's a little more hassle pulling the HTML for the direct photo links to share, but seems worth it :D.

Changing the ISO gave me a few really cool shots, thanks for that advice. I took these at 15.0sec, f/3.2, and used a little LED flashlight from AutoZone to try to make the car stand out better during the 15 seconds of photo;

80 ISO...

100 ISO...

200 ISO...

400 ISO...

Here's a couple of my favorite shots. Caught a semi-truck in the background in this one, kinda cool;

10.0s, f/2.8, ISO: 80...

My car matches all the dead trees, so I gotta keep searching for surroundings that bring out that Cashmere Silver..

10.0s, f/4.5, ISO: 200...

I just can't get over how much light the trees pick up;

8.0s, f/2.8, ISO: 200...

This one's my fav. Too bad my bumper looks like such ass. I'll recreate this one when the front looks better.

13.0s, f/2.8, ISO: 400...

Still waiting for that cloudy night. Maybe I'll also head downtown among the lights and buildings and mess around more sometime. This is fun.

Thanks man! I've become a fan of the roof rack look. I actually use it though. It bugs me if I find out people have one on but don't use it for anything haha.

Good info! The majority of these are my manual settings. I can specify the ISO, shutter time, exposure level to a degree, white balance pre-exposure (flourescent seemed to wash the photos out under the parking lights), and the camera chooses the focal length based on my zoom level, and the f-stop (I don't know how it chooses that). See below.

Thank you sir. Now that I've learned this feature, I'm definitely hooked! This camera is just my Canon PowerShot point-and-shoot, no lenses or anything. In shopping for a new camera and researching what all DSLR's have to offer, I've actually learned a couple things about this little one.

Stopped off a couple places again after work to play around a little more. Also decided to start a Flikr account to preserve the original photos as much as possible. Flikr's a little more hassle pulling the HTML for the direct photo links to share, but seems worth it :D.

Changing the ISO gave me a few really cool shots, thanks for that advice. I took these at 15.0sec, f/3.2, and used a little LED flashlight from AutoZone to try to make the car stand out better during the 15 seconds of photo;

80 ISO...

100 ISO...

200 ISO...

400 ISO...

Here's a couple of my favorite shots. Caught a semi-truck in the background in this one, kinda cool;

10.0s, f/2.8, ISO: 80...

My car matches all the dead trees, so I gotta keep searching for surroundings that bring out that Cashmere Silver..

10.0s, f/4.5, ISO: 200...

I just can't get over how much light the trees pick up;

8.0s, f/2.8, ISO: 200...

This one's my fav. Too bad my bumper looks like such ass. I'll recreate this one when the front looks better.

13.0s, f/2.8, ISO: 400...

Still waiting for that cloudy night. Maybe I'll also head downtown among the lights and buildings and mess around more sometime. This is fun.

I like the last one. Working with a long exposure is fun especially with moving light

By far my fav shot, nearly background-worthy! The reflections, exposure, and lighting are all perfect!

You're already taking better shots w/ your PnS than I am w/ my T1i, so you're already getting the hang of all the basics; shutter speed, aperture, and ISO. Than once you get a DSLR, will blow us away with your skills.

By far my fav shot, nearly background-worthy! The reflections, exposure, and lighting are all perfect!

You're already taking better shots w/ your PnS than I am w/ my T1i, so you're already getting the hang of all the basics; shutter speed, aperture, and ISO. Than once you get a DSLR, will blow us away with your skills.

Thank you! I put in the pic setting details in hopes someone could try taking pics with their camera, too. You should post some of the 'Ru! I can't imagine how much more crisp they'd look on your T1i, but I'd definitely like to see. Especially with a car your color! Do it!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Romanianpreluder

Great pictures. All your life needs now is moar loww.

I knooooowww. I'll get there, I promise.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dark_Rican

Love the quality of the pics. Great shots! The Lude, Smoke, Trees and night sky look amazing.

I appreciate that, thank you. That smoke is pretty trippy. After we get a little storm that leaves behind humidity, those smoke/steam stacks fill the entire city sky.

Quote:

Originally Posted by 99IntegraGSR

Linds lets take your car and one of mine out and you can try out the big camera of ours. the d100 or whatever it is and see what you think of that one now that you are getting the hang out stuff

My car looks like a beater next to yours so we have to take distance shots :)

Quote:

Originally Posted by bykfixer

and those stars.. did you see the stars Rican?

Next week after work I'm gonna try taking the long way home, outside the city a little to get away from some of the light pollution. I wanna see what kinda pic this thing can take if I just point it up with nothin in the way.

You my friend have decided to tackle the top 3 hardest situations to photograph. Extremely dark vs extremely light. Reaching that happy medium is not an easy task no matter what kind of camera you use. $3 toss away to $30k hassleblad.
Yet you are making it look easy. Bravo!

My brother takes pix of the moon. Very difficult to capture what you see color-wise, details and brightness. But after a few nights in the freezing cold, using trial and error like you are, he got some dandies.

Speaking of freezing cold... keep a spare battery on your person to keep it warm. If the cold is giving you less than good battery life, switch to the warm one, placing cold one on your person and keep shooting. Cold one gets warm and acts like it was recharged.
If you have the lithium kind cold shouldn't affect it as much.

You my friend have decided to tackle the top 3 hardest situations to photograph. Extremely dark vs extremely light. Reaching that happy medium is not an easy task no matter what kind of camera you use. $3 toss away to $30k hassleblad.
Yet you are making it look easy. Bravo!

My brother takes pix of the moon. Very difficult to capture what you see color-wise, details and brightness. But after a few nights in the freezing cold, using trial and error like you are, he got some dandies.

Speaking of freezing cold... keep a spare battery on your person to keep it warm. If the cold is giving you less than good battery life, switch to the warm one, placing cold one on your person and keep shooting. Cold one gets warm and acts like it was recharged.
If you have the lithium kind cold shouldn't affect it as much.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bykfixer

Wonder if he's somewhere trying more settings right now.

Gah! I'd love to take moon shots! I'll wait for a full moon though. Thanks for the compliments :)

The camera does use the Li-Ion. Both nights my fingers gave out before the battery did.

I decided I should make my car look better before I keep trying to 'show it off'. Last night I went out after sunset and took cloud pics from the parking lot. They look awesome! But, there's no Prelude in them so they're just clouds

Clouds or car... not so hard to photograph and achieve what you're after.

Clouds and car... that's not so easy. But you seem to have the knack.

Nearly all my pix at pz are cell phone pix. I don't do good car pix. It's a composition thing. Just don't have the knack. Architecture either for that matter.
My pix are usually not artwork, but try to tell a story. Photo journalism.

I've always enjoyed the challenge of getting a good car pic from all the different angles, body lines, and shadows. I've just been too lazy to learn the camera I guess, but I like to think I have a good perspective to shoot from. Obviously I go through the ones I take and pick and choose what to share though, I'd hate for things to get redundant.